During the Reagan Administration, Herbert E. Meyer served as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence
and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. In these positions, he managed production of the U.S. National
Intelligence Estimates and other top-secret projections for the President and his senior National Security advisers.
Mr. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union’s collapse,
which he did in the early 1980s -- to considerable political derision. He later was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished
Service Medal, which is the Intelligence Community’s highest honor.
Prior to his service with the U.S. Government, Mr. Meyer was an associate editor of Fortune, where he was among the magazine’s
top international specialists.
He is author of several books, including Real-World Intelligence, The War Against Progress, and Hard Thinking. And with
his wife, Jill, Mr. Meyer is co-author of How to Write, a handbook used widely at colleges throughout the world.
Currently, Mr. Meyer is founder and President of Real-World Intelligence Inc., a company that is the world’s leading designer
of Intelligence Systems for business. Through Real-World Intelligence, Mr. Meyer and his colleagues have set up Business Intelligence
Systems for major companies and financial institutions throughout the world.
Mr. Meyer’s essay, A User’s Guide to Politics, was published in Policy Review. Shortly after the September 11 attacks,
Mr. Meyer wrote The CIA Must Learn to Play Offense, which was published on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. As a
result of that article, Mr. Meyer appeared on Hardball, with Chris Matthews, on Fox News, and on the Kirby Wilbur show. In
October 2002, National Review Online published Mr. Meyer’s essay entitled Doing Intel: Lessons Still Unlearned. His latest
essay, Memo to the 9/11 Commission, was published by National Review Online in January 2003.